Letters | K-pop star’s coronavirus joke was the last thing the world needed

To be sure, Mr Kim has many fans from Hong Kong too, where K-pop has been all the rage in recent years. Mr Kim would have been the first Korean star to be hospitalised for the virus if his announcement on social media was true. In that post, he even said he was sorry if he had unknowingly infected anyone else.

Although he revealed soon afterwards that the post was merely a public-spirited April fool’s prank intended to raise awareness of the tragedy wrought by Covid-19 worldwide – because he felt many people were still not taking the pandemic seriously – the internet didn’t buy his story. He came under a storm of online criticism, with even fans chiding him for rubbing salt into the wounds of people genuinely affected by or suffering from the coronavirus.

Anyone with the slightest sense can tell that the virulent rampage of Covid-19 has cast a pall over the whole world, not unlike a third world war. Everywhere the virus goes, it leaves wailing mourners in its wake.